Dither Play Laurie Spiegel

Dither, a New York based electric guitar quartet, is dedicated to an eclectic mix of experimental repertoire which spans composed, improvised, and electronic music. Formed in 2007, the quartet has performed across the United States and abroad, presenting new commissions, original compositions, multimedia works, and large guitar ensemble pieces. Dither’s members are Taylor Levine, Joshua Lopes, James Moore, and Brendon Randall-Myers.

Dither has performed and collaborated with a wide range of artists including Eve Beglarian, Nels Cline, Fred Frith, Mary Halvorson, David Lang, Ikue Mori, Phill Niblock, Lee Ranaldo, Laurie Spiegel, Lois V. Vierk, Yo La Tengo, and John Zorn. They have brought their live 13-guitar rendition of Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint to The Barbican Center, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, The Ellnora Guitar Festival and WNYC’s New Sounds Live. The quartet has also performed at the Guggenheim Museum, the Bang on a Can Marathon, The Performa Biennial, The Amsterdam Electric Guitar Heaven Festival, Hong Kong’s Fringe Theater, The Winter Jazz Festival, and the Borealis Festival.

Dither produces an annual Extravaganza, a raucous festival of creative music and art, which has been called an “official concert on the edge” by the New Yorker and “the here and now of New York’s postclassical music scene” by Time Out New York. They have released four full-length albums, including Dither plays Zorn on Tzadik, featuring the premiere recordings of several of John Zorn’s improvisational game pieces, which was named one of the year’s “best avant albums” by Rolling Stone.

At Big Ears, Dither will perform works by Laurie Spiegel. Laurie Spiegel has been a lifelong player of plucked instruments – mandolin, guitar, banjo, lute and others. So although the compositions included in this program were initially created using electronic sounds to orchestrate the pitch-time content she created using computer logic as structuring processes, the influence of a plucked string aesthetic could not help but come through, along with echoes of the folk, grassroots and improvisational music Spiegel played prior to somewhat belatedly acquiring a proper classical-tradition music education with extensive additional studies of counterpoint and pre-classical music.

Laurie’s description of the program: “When I composed this music, using various combinations of computer-coded logic and realtime interactive controls of the high level variables that logic incorporated, I was fascinated by the processes, structures and sounds. I never gave much thought to whether this music could be performed live by human musicians. I simply assumed that was out of the question, that it could not be played live. So I was skeptical when the Dither Quartet approached me about doing just that. To my delight they proved my doubts wrong and have come through with one amazing performance after another. This is a true collaboration between human and technological music creators, from my initial use of computer software during the compositional process through the newest layer of electronic orchestration, the wide array of digital signal processing effects that have turned a mere 4 guitars into a full cosmic-level orchestra.”